Hi all,
I am a long time gamer, mainly console (boo and hiss), looking to move to PC gaming, I have a rig I built several years ago for a combination of gaming and productivity. I'm hoping to build a new machine in the near future but untill then I'm hoping a GPU and RAM upgrade will do the trick. I'm torn betwen the 7870 and 7970 I can get the 7970 for just over £300 and the 7870 for around 200. I'm hoping to use eyefinity in the future but my current setup is a sony bravia 40" tv (1080). I currently run my PC into a Yammaha RX-v371 surround sound amp via HDMI and this goes into the tv (it does push through 1080) I've heard people can experience problems with getting soung through displayport when converting displayport to HDMI would i be better off looking for a card with HDMI?
I know the 7970 is better in terms of performance but in the show Logan says it's loud and hot, I was just wondering how would the 7870 handle eyefinity on newer games?
The other option is to save the extra cash and get a new motherboard and CPU sooner currently using a ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO and a AMD Athlon II x4 2.6GHz
The Asus 7970 seems to be the cheapest 7970 card is there a reason for this the reviews I've seen so far have been good it also has 4 displayport and two DVI?
I know I've asked alot of questions but any help or reccomendations would be great.
That athlon is a pretty sad these days, I would wait for a full upgrade. The 7970 (and probably the 7870) would be bottlenecked by that CPU, so I think you should wait. Your RAM on the other hand, might be looking for an upgrade. Tell us what you have, and we'll tell you what we think.
I figured the GPU would probably be bottlenecked by the CPU, I'm hoping to build something similar to Logan's most recent UK build and $1300 build Possibly with a i5 2500k with the hope of doing a bit of over clocking. Pretty sure my current RAM is 4GB of g skill or corsair 1600MHz. Hoping to buy 16GB of Corsair vengance 1866MHz in the near future. I was hoping the GPU and RAM may be a band aid solution for a month or two (christmas money from parents was going to contribute to the purchase) while I saved up for new CPU, MOBO, SSD and PSU. Would you just wait and get the whole lot together?
Depends how long you are waiting, and how much you want it. I waited from about july to november to buy my rig (and saved a bundle on black friday), and I am only going to be able to assemble, and get it at the begining of january. So its up to you. I wanted to get the best I could get, even if I had to wait a few months, but you may feel different.
On the other hand, if you are just going to use this Card/RAM on the new build, you migth want to get and use it now. But one problem with that is that if you wait to long, things will get cheaper, and more powerful. Which meens you will have spend more money to get less. But you also got extra time with the parts.
After you have taken that into account you can either watch the tech world for amazing deals/upgrade & releases, or watch really closely, and buy then.
Yeah the plan was always to throw them in the new rig in Jan/Feb after using them in the old rig for a month or two. I could possibly push the whole thing to early Jan and wait for the sales in the UK. Any advice on the 7870 vs 7970, would the 7870 handle eyefinity ok on newer games? I don't want to buy 3 screens to need to buy a new GPU.
This give a pretty good example, as does this. So, get the 7870 I would say
Is it worth paying an extra £50-70 ($80-115) for a 7950?
Maybe, and you do get an additional free game, so its really not a bad deal.